Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
RFC 1424 - 3.1 Certification request

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### 3.1 Certification request

A certification request is an RFC 1421 MIC-ONLY or MIC-CLEAR privacy-enhanced message containing a self-signed certificate. There is only one signer.

The fields of the self-signed certificate (which has type Certificate, as in RFC 1422) are as follows:

version is 0

serialNumber is arbitrary; the value 0 is suggested unless the certification authority specifies otherwise

signature is the algorithm by which the self-signed certificate is signed; it need not be the same as the algorithm by which the requested certificate is to be signed

issuer is the requestor's distinguished name

validity is arbitrary; the value with start and end both at 12:00am GMT, January 1, 1970, is suggested unless the certification authority specifies otherwise

subject is the requestor's distinguished name

subjectPublicKeyInfo is the requestor's public key

The requestor's MIC encryption algorithm must be asymmetric (e.g., RSA) and the MIC algorithm must be keyless (e.g., RSA-MD2, not MAC), so that anyone can verify the signature.

Example:

       To: cert-service@ca.domain
       From: requestor@host.domain

       -----BEGIN PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE-----
       Proc-Type: 4,MIC-ONLY
       Content-Domain: RFC822
       Originator-Certificate: <requestor's self-signed certificate>
       MIC-Info: RSA,RSA-MD2,<requestor's signature on text>

       <text>
       -----END PRIVACY-ENHANCED MESSAGE-----

Next: 3.2 Certification reply

Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
RFC 1424 - 3.1 Certification request